Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Friday issued an apology for cracking two Asian-themed jokes during a speech Thursday night at the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce.

"My comments were in extremely poor taste and I apologize. Sometimes I say the wrong thing,” Reid said in a statement to The Hill.

The Democratic leader issued the apology after a video surfaced online of him joking with the crowd in Las Vegas about their ethnicity.

"The Asian population is so productive. I don't think you're smarter than anybody else, but you have convinced a lot of us you are," Reid said to the audience at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino, garnering laughter.

Video of Reid's remarks were recorded and posted online Friday by America Rising, a Republican opposition research group.

An office manager with the Las Vegas Chamber confirmed Reid's jokes but said chamber leaders had not discussed them after the event. She said she was "shocked" to hear that video of Reid’s remarks had been posted on the Web.

She said a person with America Rising had called the Chamber before the event requesting to shoot video but had been told recordings were off-limits.

"We told him still pictures only. At the end, I asked him if he did just pictures, and he said yes," she said.

America Rising did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

This is not the first time Reid has had to apologize for remarks about race.

In early 2010, Reid apologized to President Obama for comments he made during the campaign that were later reported in the book Game Change by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.

The book quoted Reid saying privately that Obama's "light-skinned" appearance and the fact that he had "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" helped him as a candidate.

“We don't have any comment on that,” the spokesman said when reached by phone on Friday, adding, "That's off the record."

Reid made a series of jokes about Asians in a speech to the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce this week, captured on video by GOP opposition research group America Rising.

“I don’t think you’re smarter than anybody else, but you’ve convinced a lot of us you are,” Reid told the group of Asian business leaders.

Later, he again joked, “One problem that I’ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight.”

Reid has since apologized for the racial jokes, but the Asian political groups have been muted in their reaction to the incident.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus's website says it will “denounce” any “racial and religious discrimination affecting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders."

There are no Republican members of the caucus, although there are many members who are not Asian—like Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), among others. The group’s executive director did not respond to a request for comment about the caucus’ membership requirements.

Daily Caller has a story on this remarkable video of Sen. Harry Reid speaking before the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce. In it, Sen. Reid engages in ethnic humor. First he jokes about Asians being smarter than everyone else — a racial stereotype, albeit a positive one. Later, he jokes that he “can’t keep his Wongs straight.” That joke has a bit more bite. Would Reid joke to a white audience that he can’t keep his Smiths straight? Is he suggesting that all Asians look alike?

I’m asking as the husband of a Japanese woman…

Sen. Reid has a history of making racial remarks, as when he noted that Barack Obama was a viable black presidential candidate because he is “clean and articulate.” He had to apologize directly to Obama for that one.

The Senator’s efforts did not help his chosen candidate for Nevada lieutenant governor. He sought the Asian Chamber’s endorsement for Democrat Lucy Flores. But the Chamber backed Republican Mark Hutchison instead.

More: This shouldn’t go without a mention. Democrats in Kentucky have been attacking Sen. Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao — because she is Asian.

And, during his first run for governor, Louisiana Democrats launched a series of racist attacks on Bobby Jindal by referring to his given name, Piyush.

More: Reid has a long history of making racist and, frankly, idiotic remarks. That very history prompts the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake to grant him “gaffe immunity.”

A Republican with a similar history — there aren’t any, by the way — would be driven from office.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.--January 27, 1838 Lyceum Address

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.--August 27, 1856 Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan

Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.--July 10, 1858 Speech at Chicago

Senate Majority Leader and totally lovable Harry Reid has apologized for making a few offensive (and lame) asian jokes at an Asian Chamber of Commerce event Thursday.

“My comments were in extremely poor taste and I apologize,” Sen. Reid said in a statement to TIME. “Sometimes I say the wrong thing.” (RELATED: Harry Reid Jokes About Asians)

Here are just a few of those times Reid has said “the wrong thing.”

1. Reid referred to Barack Obama as “light-skinned” and without a “Negro dialect,” in 2008, and said those two factors would help Obama’s then presidential bid. His comments were reported in the book “Game Changer,” in 2010, and he eventually apologized for his remarks. “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Reid said. (RELATED: Reid Condemns Rancher For Racist Comments)

2. In 2008, Reid explained his relief that the Capitol Visitor Center was completed, because he would no longer have to “smell the tourists” on hot days. “My staff has always said, ‘Don’t say this,’ but I’m going to say it again because it’s so descriptive, because it’s true,” he said at the dedication. “In the summertime, because (of) the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.”

3. As the healthcare debate was raging in 2009, Reid told a Nevada newspaper Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy’s then recent death would help the Democrats’ cause. “I think [Kennedy] will be a help. He’s an inspiration for us. [Healthcare] was the issue of his life and he didn’t get it done.”

4. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Reid accused GOP candidate Mitt Romney of not paying taxes, because Romney hadn’t released his tax returns. “He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years!” he told the Huffington Post. “Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?” The claim was based on an anonymous source, and turned out to be completely unfounded. (RELATED: The Source Of Harry Reid’s Lie)

5. While campaigning in Nevada in 2010, Reid spoke incredulously of Hispanic Republicans. “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay,” he said to an audience full of Hispanic voters. “Do I need to say more?”

6. Following the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision this month, which allows Hobby Lobby and other for-profit businesses to avoid providing employees certain contraceptives on religious grounds, Reid let it slip that he thinks Justice Clarence Thomas is white. ”This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous, and we’re going to do something about it,” Reid told reporters following the ruling. He said the Senate would act to “ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men.” But Thomas, one of the five justices who sided with Hobby Lobby, is black. Whoops. (RELATED: Harry Reid Slammed By Hometown Paper For Racebaiting)

7. In a 2013 speech at his annual energy conference, Reid referred to town-hall protesters angry about Obamacare as “evil-mongers,” who use “lies, innuendo and rumor” to end debate. He then doubled down on his remarks in an interview with Politics Daily. ”It was an original with me. I maybe could have been less descriptive,” he said, then added that “I feel like I haven’t done anything to embarrass them. Except maybe call somebody an evil-monger.”

8. In February, Reid declared all the Obamacare horror stories ever told untrue, and accused Republicans of using false stories for political gain. “There’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue, but they’re being told all over America,” he said on the House floor. “We heard about the evils of Obamacare, about the lifes its ruining in Republican stump speeches, and in ads paid for by oil magnets, the Koch brothers,” he added. “But then those tales turned out to be just that. Tales. Stories made up from whole cloth. Lies distorted by Republicans to grab headlines or make political advertisements.”

But just a month later, after another Senator called him out several times for lying, Reid denied he ever said a word on the House floor about the examples Republicans gave. “I have never come to the floor, to my recollection, I never said a word about any of the examples that Republicans have given regarding Obamacare and how, how it’s not very good.” (RELATED: Harry Reid Lies About His Lies About Obamacare)

9. In August last year, Reid declared the Tea Party the new anarchist movement. “You know, some say that’s what started World War I, the anarchy movement — but they were violent. They did damage to property and they did physical damage to people,” he said in an interview on KNPR. “The modern anarchists don’t do that — that’s the tea party,” Reid clarified. “But they have the same philosophy as the early anarchists: They do not believe in government. Anytime something bad happens to government, that’s a victory for them. And that’s what happened. We have absolute gridlock created by a group of people who represent few Americans. But it makes it extremely difficult to get things done.”

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.--January 27, 1838 Lyceum Address

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.--August 27, 1856 Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan

Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.--July 10, 1858 Speech at Chicago